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502. I. THE STATE OF A VIRGIN OR UNDEFLOWERED WOMAN BEFORE MARRIAGE AND AFTER MARRIAGE. What the state of a virgin is before she has been instructed concerning the various particulars of the conjugial torch, was made manifest to me by wives in the spiritual world, being women who had departed from the natural world in their infancy and had been educated in heaven. They said that when they came to a marriageable state they began to love the conjugial life from seeing married partners, but only to the end that they might be called wives and might have friendly and trustful companionship with one man; also, that when separated from the house of obedience, they might become of their own right. Respecting marriage, they said that they had thought of it solely from the blessedness of mutual friendship and confidence with a male consort, and not at all from the delight of any flame; [2] but that after the nuptials the virgin state was changed into a new state, of which the virgin had previously known nothing whatever. They said further that this was a state in which everything of the life of the virgin's body from the first things thereof to the last is expanded for the receiving of her husband's gifts and the uniting of them to her own life, that so she might become his love and his wife; that this state commenced from the moment of defloration, and that after this the flame of love burned for the husband alone; that she felt the delights of that expansion to be heavenly delights; and that, having been introduced into that state by her husband, and the state being from him and so his state in her, she could not possibly love any but him alone. [3] From this account, the nature of the state of virgins in heaven before marriage and after marriage was made manifest. That the state is the same with virgins and wives on earth when joined [to their husbands] at the first omens, is no secret. What virgin can know that new state before she is in it? Inquire and you will hear. It is different with those who before marriage get allurement from learning about it.